From 1984, U.S. 1 #8, "Heart-Brakes!" Written by Al Milgrom, pencils by Frank Springer, inks by Mike Esposito.
I hadn't read any of this issue before, but this one does feature a catfight between the lead character U.S.'s love interests: waitress Mary McGrill and trucker Taryn "Down the Highway" O'Connell. Taryn shows up at Mary's truck stop, scuffed up after an accident, and throws herself at U.S. just to piss off Mary. Mary retaliates by snooping in Taryn's truck and finding the costume of the biker villain Midnight! Which would explain why Taryn was scufffed up, but also could be a plant, by Mary or someone else. Panicked, Taryn uses Midnight's whip to escape, although U.S. notices Taryn didn't seem to know how to use the whip's mind-control power. Taryn hijacks a motorcycle, U.S. gives chase in his modified, toyetic big rig; and Taryn is eventually, apparently killed by trying to use the whip--in time for the real Midnight to arrive!
Plotwise, that's not terrible, but it's not a great comic: a lot of bad jokes, serviceable art, for a barely-remembered toy. Except, I had thought someone had posted the cover a while back, so I had to pick it up out of a quarter-bin.
Michael Golden, delivering the goods. So much better than most books would deserve, let alone this one.
3 comments:
Damn....DAT COVER THO! This definitely a classic case of the cover being better than inside art or story.
I will say, probably the most decent bit of art from Frank Springer. He did art on one of the 1st volumes of What If? and it was fucking horrible. Looks readable here at least.
So US 1 was base off a toy truck? Never saw it myself. Did you?
Also, how unfortunate to have a nickname like "Down the highway"? Ha ha. Gotta remember that one. "She's not a whore, she's one of those Down the highway sorta broads." Ha!
I think US 1, the toy, was some kind of RC/slot racing, long-haul truck thing. I don't know if that appealed to kids at all--racing and excitement are fine, but give me double-nickel, CB-radio, 14 hour stretches of highway driving! Maybe there's some kid out there who had this and grew up to be a trucker, living the dream!
From US !? Ha! Maybe....or maybe that's as about as likely as a kid who read SuperPro becoming a pro-ball player.
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